Few environments in Legend of Zelda are as intimidating as the mighty Death Mountain. The ominous mountain peak is filled with fire, lava and narrow pathways in Ocarina of Time, making for one of the franchise's most memorable areas.
The foreboding trip to the deadly Fire Temple is made even more impressive when recreated in Unreal Engine 4. Fire spews from the pits below, sparks fill the air and the lava looks hot enough to kill.
In the video below, you'll see a demo of the remake in action, as kid Link (sporting a red tunic) explores the dangerous mountain trails. The recreation comes from creator CryZENx, who, at this point, is a master of rebuilding iconic games and locations in the ultra powerful Unreal Engine created by developer Epic.
Each part of the environment is painstakingly remade from the original game, only this time, far less blocky. That being said, you can still simply tell from the layout of the area that this recreation is based on an almost-two-decade-old game. Link's character model is a different story. From the textures on his wooden shield to the glint in his large blue eyes, Link has never looked better.
You can download the tech demo and explore it for yourself here.
This is far from CryZENx's first Legend of Zelda recreation. He's remade the Temple of Time and Hyrule Field from Link's first 3D adventure, and has even gone so far as to reimagine what the 2D Link to the Past might look like were it to get the 3D treatment. Let's hope he gets around to making a full Unreal Engine remake of the Fire Temple next.
It's not just Legend of Zelda that looks great when recreated in one of the most powerful game engines available. One gamer recently tried his hand at recreating a simple version of Minecraft in Unreal Engine 4, and the results are mighty impressive. One might think you can't improve upon Minecraft's simple block visuals, but you would be surprised. You can read more about that here.
